


When the Wolves Go Blind

by Herbluvsdan



Category: Lupin III
Genre: General Shenanigans, Heist, Thievery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-06 10:53:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5414150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Herbluvsdan/pseuds/Herbluvsdan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lupin and his crew have planned to rob a famed Estonian general on the full moon, and Zenigata is determined to take them down. But with his nasty illness, will he be able to catch them?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapitre un

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jigen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jigen/gifts).



> i changed the title and description of this fic so dont think its a different one btw

It was a Tuesday morning, as he sat outside a small cafe somewhere in Paris, when Zenigata saw the headline in the papers: “Mastermind thieves out to steal ancient World War artifact from famed Estonian general!” The Inspector didn’t have to read the article. He could smell the plot from a hundred miles away. Calmly, he sipped his tea, putting down the newspaper. His hands trembled, despite his calm pulse. Another chase, he thought, sighing.

He wished that perhaps once, he could actually enjoy a soft moment in the morning like this. That this foreign tranquil could perhaps last was a theory inevitable to fail. But, in a way, he didn’t much mind. After all, the chase for Lupin was his life’s work. Nobody could understand Arsène Lupin III like Koichi Zenigata could, and that was a fact. His thoughts were disturbed by a distinct ringing: his cell phone. He looked at the screen: his boss. As soon as he received the order, booked a flight to Estonia, to meet General Aleksander in his fortress of a home.

~~~

Miserable. In one word, that was Daisuke Jigen. Estonia in November wasn’t freezing, Lupin had assured him, and it wouldn’t be that bad. But then, Lupin always sugared things up when he wanted Jigen to come along. The true weather of Estonia hammered that lesson into Jigen once more. It was cold, far too cold for Jigen. He had to sport a large green puffy jacket over his suit, as well as a scarf Lupin had bought for him. Lupin, however, needed only his regular attire, a long scarf, and a cigarette, and he was fine. It made Jigen mad.  
“Jigen, dear, there’s no need for such pettiness,” Lupin said to him with a grin, “Just grit your teeth and bear through it. It’ll be over and you’ll be rich before you know it.”  
Jigen didn’t believe a word coming out of that monkey’s mouth, and had half a mind to leave while he could, but he knew he could never bring himself to do that. He followed him everywhere. He wouldn’t chicken out of a heist just because it was 36 fahrenheit outside.  
“You know something, Jigen, schoolchildren play outside at this temperature and they don’t complain.” Lupin said as he inspected a sunglasses rack. They were outside some touristy shop, waiting for.. something. Jigen had forgotten what five minutes ago. He took a long drag from his cigarette. “What are we doing here, Lupin?”  
“Waiting.”  
“No shit. I mean, what are we waiting for? We could back at our hideout, which is a lot warmer than this place.”  
“Don’t you want to give Zenigata a warm welcome, Ji-Ji? In this weather, he could use it, right?”  
“Zenigata?”  
“That’s right. His flight was scheduled for today. And his arrival here, I’ve calculated it to be just about.. now.”

As he spoke, a police vehicle drove recklessly into a parking space across the street. Out of the vehicle came Zenigata, slamming the door and leaning against the car. He looked awful. He blew his nose into a handkerchief and promptly sneezed. He looked over to the Estonian officer who rode passenger with him.  
“What’s the date?” he asked, looking dazed. He had forgotten.  
“It is the 24th of November, Inspector.” the man answered, eyeing him suspiciously.  
“Right.. Full moon in three days, isn’t it? That’s when Lupin is planning his heist. And we’ll be right there to stop him.”

Across the road, Jigen looked on in confusion. “Why are they stopping here? What are they doing?”  
“Checking with headquarters, Jigen. Check in first, see the General next. Don’t worry, our plan is going to go fine. I promise.”  
“You promise a lot of things.”  
“A gentleman doesn’t break his word. Just watch. They’ll be out of there in a few minutes. And then, they’ll be on their way to the home of General Aleksander.”

It soon became clear that Lupin was correct. As soon as Zenigata and the officer had begun to drive away, Lupin and Jigen hopped into their Fiat and followed behind them.

When Zenigata arrived at the house of the General, he noticed that it looked more like a castle than a home. A mansion in it’s own right, and it must’ve been hundreds of years old. And Zenigata didn’t like it one bit. The place was too large for his liking, too many passages and doors and weak spots, Lupin could get in anywhere! Did people not think about this? Sometimes, he felt like he was the only living reasonable man left. 

And that’s precisely what he told the general. Almost.

What he had really said was more formal.

“General Aleksander, it’s nice to finally meet you. I am Inspector Zenigata from Interpol.” were the first words to come from his mouth, as he held his hand to his forehead in a salute.  
The general looked Zenigata up and down, reluctant to speak with him. “Who is this with you?” he asked quietly.  
“This is Officer Hendrik Sirel of the Estonian police force. He’s assisting me with the case.” answered Zenigata, who was trying extremely hard to keep eye contact with the general, and not his various taxidermied animals.  
“Case? What case?” sniffed the general.  
“The infamous thief Arsène Lupin has sent you a calling card, isn’t that right? And you reported that to the police.” explained Officer Sirel.  
“It’s Lu-pon, not Lu-pin.” Zenigata muttered.  
“Oh, yes, the calling card. Of course.” the general paused a moment, before erupted with a nasty combination of a sneeze and cough; all, of course, in close proximity to Zenigata. “Oh, sorry about that. Had a nasty cold for a while now. Winter is coming and whatnot. Come this way, gentlemen.” 

“I.. understand. I’ve had a sickness for a while too.” Zenigata said as he followed the man, attempting to hide his absolute disgust.  
“See? Seasons are changing! Anyway, the calling card, which I’m sure you’ve read, has said he’s coming to steal this artifact my father’s father’s father kept,” he laughed condescendingly. “Don’t know what he’d want with this old thing.”

Zenigata and Sirel were led to a room filled with even more taxidermied animals. Frankly, it creeped Zenigata the hell out. Sirel didn’t seem to mind, and neither did Aleksander. Zenigata shrugged slightly, resolving to think that it must've just been an Estonian thing. Aleksander walked up to an unsightly display case. Slowly, almost too dramatically, he opened the case and waved Zenigata over.

“This is it.”

Inside the case, on red felt, rested a small diamond, not much larger than the top joint of Zenigata’s thumb.

“This is it?”  
“That’s it.”

That was it.

"This is an artifact?" asked Zenigata, rather confused.  
"Well, yes! It is _well known_ that this diamond was fought over by the two major opponents of the war! Whoever they were.."  
“All right.. General Aleksander, would you mind showing me and my men every entrance to your home? Any place a man could possibly imagine to fit in, I need to see it. And I mean any place. Even if you think it’s too small, or narrow.”  
“Doesn’t that seem like a bit much, Mr. Zenigata?”  
“You don’t know Lupin like I do. If he wants something, he gets it.”  
“Oh.. Very well. Come this way to the kitchen. Bring the entire police force if you so choose.”

 

~~~

 

“Just like always,” Lupin said quietly, gazing through his binoculars at the house, “Pops has the place armed to the teeth.”  
“We’ll get past them. We always do.” Jigen said back.  
“I never expressed any doubt, my friend. Let’s get going on those plans, shall we? Three days time until the big heist! Can’t you just taste the excitement in the air?”  
“The cold air numbed my taste, I’m afraid.”  
“Drama queen. Come on, back in the car, then.”

As Jigen slammed the car door shut, he spoke again. "Lupin, this job.. Something doesn't seem right about this job, you know? My tooth aches, and it always aches when something's not right."  
"Jigen, dear, your teeth ache because you never go to the dentist. Things will go fine. They always do." Lupin retorted, grinning at his partner.

This heist would be an interesting one; Lupin could sense it in the air. Jigen was right. Something would change, he knew it. And so he began the most tedious part: the waiting.


	2. Chapitre deux

Jigen couldn’t quite tell where the plan had gone wrong, but somewhere along the line, one of them fucked up. Bad. So bad, that they had to run. And that’s just what Jigen was doing, running as fast as he could away from the Estonian police. The damn house was like a maze, he thought, and he felt trapped and hopelessly lost. Lupin and him had to split ways a while ago, and since then, Jigen had lost his way. Lupin had the diamond, but still a good half of the police followed Jigen instead. It wasn’t fair, was Jigen’s last thought before being tackled by a very angry Zenigata.

“Now’s not the time for this, old man!” he shouted, shoving the inspector off of him and running further down the hall he was in. It seemed to go on for miles, and right behind him, similarly stuck in the hellish maze, was Zenigata. 

Zenigata felt absolutely sick. Day by day, he got progressively worse with his cold. Was it even a cold? That didn’t matter now, what mattered was to chase the bad guy. After he had tackled him, he noticed that it wasn’t Lupin he was chasing; now, he realized he was hallucinating too, and the hallway just seemed to get longer and longer and darker and darker and-

Jigen heard a hard thump behind him, and turned momentarily to see Zenigata on the ground. He hesitated. If Zenigata’s age was catching up to him.. If his heart wasn’t as good as they had thought.. Well, he couldn’t just leave him there. And besides, they had seemed to lose the police. He turned to run to the other man’s side.  
“Pops? Hey, Zenigata, what’s going on?”  
He turned Zenigata’s body over. The pulse was steady, but quick. His skin was blotchy, and hot. When Jigen concluded that he would be okay, he turned to run, but not before Zenigata snapped awake and gripped his arm with newly grown claws. He bit into Jigen with fangs he hadn’t had previously, drawing blood. 

Jigen let out a shout before prying his arm loose. He began to run, and for a short period of time, he was followed by Zenigata, who ran on all fours, and let out a hideous screech. When he had finally been lost from the man’s sight, he stopped to catch his breath. Zenigata didn’t usually do that, and if he did, Jigen surely would’ve noticed by now. Furthermore, no human being in their right mind did that. Maybe, he thought, chasing Lupin really was getting to him. He shook his head, moving to run to the escape site he and Lupin had set up.

Zenigata had blacked out for a while, and when he regained his conscience, he could only taste iron. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and looked to his hands to see blood and claws. His breathing quickened and he spat blood all over the shining marble of the floor. A sudden feeling of uncontrollable rage overcame him, and he fell into a hutch filled to the top shelf with (presumably) expensive china dishes. The glass shattered and china dishes crashed to the floor. It wasn’t long before he was writhing in pain on the ground, shouting and clawing at his skin, screams increasing in volume and deepening in pitch. Fur had begun to grow all over him, and in the heat of his pain he had torn off his trenchcoat, hat of course long gone. His bones cracked and shifted, shaping into an animalistic form. The last few coughs he let out were barks, and it wasn’t long before his human shape was lost.

~

“Lupin!” Jigen shouted, grabbing his partner’s arm. “Where’s Goemon?”  
“He’ll be here!” Lupin shouted back.

Goemon was late with the chopper, and he could not have picked a worse time to be so late. Lupin looked at his friend’s own arm.

“You’re bleeding,” he pointed out.  
“Yeah, no shit!” Jigen retorted. “We don’t have time for my injuries right now, the entire Estonian police force is on our asses here!”

Jigen and Lupin, both men of high pride, would maintain that they weren’t frightened easily; but when their one escape plan was officially defunct, they had gotten rather unsettled. When they heard a door slam, and a suspicious growling behind them, they were scared. 

“Holy shit! Lupin, what the fuck is that?!”

Lupin didn’t get to answer, but in truth, he didn’t know anyway. It looked vaguely like a wolf, or a bear, or some other woodland creature, but a lot larger than a normal one. It looked like a wolf on steroids, and frankly, they were terrified. Lupin felt more pain than terror when the beast lunged at him, effectively knocking him off the roof. The only thing that saved him was his instinctual grabbing on the edges of the building. So there he was left, hanging off the edge of the roof. Three shots were fired, and Jigen soon joined him there, hanging from Lupin’s legs.

“You’re dragging me down!” Lupin shouted.  
“Hold on harder!”  
“Let go!”  
“You let go!”  
“Fine!”

Lucky for them, there was a convenient hill next to the roof. Unlucky for them, the creature pursuing them wasn’t about to let them go. Both screaming and running as fast as they could, they turned every corner possible to mislead the thing. It wasn’t until they were breathing what Jigen thought would be their last breaths before Lupin had realized why the thing could follow them.

“Jigen, take off your clothes!” he spouted.  
“What? Lupin, this isn’t the time to-”  
“It knows our scent, we have to leave our clothes behind!”  
“It’s fucking cold!”  
“Do you want to die?”

With much complaining and struggle, both of them shed their clothes until they were left in boxers (and in Jigen’s case, a hat). It was a long run back to their current living space, and with only underwear and not much else, they had nearly frozen to death. 

“GOEMON!” shouted Jigen, busting open the door to their hideout. “Where the fuck where you?”

Goemon was sitting cross-legged on a coffee table in the living room, deep in meditation, when they had walked in, both half-naked and roughed up.

“I guess it didn’t go well, did it?”  
“Didn’t go well? _Didn’t go well?_ Of course it didn’t go well, you didn’t go through with our escape plan!” Jigen shouted angrily. Lupin laid a hand on his shoulder, pulling him back a step.  
“Escape plan?” At this, Goemon raised an eyebrow and opened his eyes.  
“Yeah. The one we told you about, Goemon.” Lupin said. He sounded weary.  
“I did not hear of an escape plan. You must be mistaken, Lupin.” He closed his eyes.  
Lupin sighed heavily. “Okay. Sure.” he said flatly, then turned to walk towards a dresser.  
“Lupin, where are you going?” Jigen asked, eyebrows furrowing.  
“I’m going to get dressed. Here’s the diamond.” He tossed the jewel to Jigen, who caught it with bewilderment.  
“You actually kept this?” he asked, looking into it.  
“Of course. I wouldn’t go through all that trouble just to ditch a priceless jewel, Jigen dear. I may be exhausted, but I’m not quite delirious yet.” he said, and slammed the door to his room shut. They did not see him for the rest of the night.

Jigen sat down on a couch to his left and sighed lightly. Slowly, it dawned on him that he, too, was not wearing much in terms of clothes, and that perhaps he should get dressed too. But as he moved to stand, he realized that his suit was long gone in the snow, and the only other clothing was in Lupin’s room. His hat, of course, stay perfectly atop his head; he wouldn’t leave it for the world. He grunted.

“Goemon.” he said. “Hey, Goemon.” He snapped his fingers at the samurai.  
Goemon did not flinch. “I am not a dog, Jigen.”  
“Yeah, I know that. Look, now that you’re here, maybe you should make yourself useful- Or, uh, just.. I need to ask a favor of you.”  
“What is it?”  
“I need you to go get me some clothes.”  
There was a pause.  
“Just go get some from the dresser in Lupin’s-”  
“No, man, no! Didn’t you hear him? He’ll probably be pissed about it.”  
“Why?”  
“Because he’s probably asleep or something, and if I wake him up, he’ll be pissed. Simple chain of events, and I don’t want him pissed.”  
“Maybe you should summon up your courage and go in there.”  
“Please, Goemon. I’m asking really nicely. Just.. Just go to a suit shop and find one for me, that’s all you have to-”  
“How will I pay for it?”  
“Pay for it? Who says you have to pay for anything?” Jigen asked, letting out a sharp laugh. “We just stole a diamond. You can probably steal a suit, Goemon.”  
“I’m not a petty thief, Jigen.”  
“Goemon, for god’s sake, _pl-_ ”  
“Fine! I’ll do it.”  
“Thank you.” Jigen sighed.

As Goemon left, Jigen turned on the television. The first channel to come up was the news. It wasn’t much entertainment; he didn’t speak Estonian. He flipped through the channels, looking for something, anything, in English, but found nothing, and settled to flip back to the news. On it were none other than himself and Lupin, of course. There was helicopter footage of them running, being chased by the creature they had encountered.

After a few minutes of watching himself run in circles, he moved to clean his arm, grabbing some gauze, alcohol, and a few band-aids, and returning to the couch.

“Exciting time you two had, running around like that.” said an unseen female voice, but Jigen didn’t have to see her to know who she was.  
“Fujiko, it isn’t nice of you to sneak up on a man when all he has on is underwear.” he muttered.  
“And that ratty old hat you always have, of course. Don’t forget that.” she retorted, moving behind the couch.  
“Keep quiet. Don’t want you waking up Lupin.”  
“Why are you half naked?”  
“Why are you here?”  
“I asked first.”

Jigen sighed once more. The last thing he wanted was for Fujiko to come between him and Lupin again.

“Job gone wrong. Now you.”  
“I want the diamond.”  
Of course. “Well, I worked real hard for it. I’m sure there’s some rich guy in town who will get you another one.”  
“That’s a special one, Jigen, and I want it.” Fujiko said sternly.  
Jigen turned to look at her. “No.” he said stiffly.

Suddenly, Goemon burst through the door, and then, realizing how loud he’d been, softly closed it.

“Jigen, I have your suit.” he said, tossing some clothes at Jigen.  
“Goemon, baby, long time no see!” Fujiko said cheerfully.  
Goemon looked at her, blushed, and looked away.  
“Oi! I said keep quiet. Lupin’s asleep.” Jigen shouted.

***

Lupin lie awake on his mattress, unable to sleep due to the major commotion going down outside his door. He had half a mind to yell at them all, but he was too tired, and Fujiko was there; his father had always taught him that it was rude to yell at ladies.

For an hour more all he heard from Fujiko was _“Give me the diamond!”_ and from Jigen came a reasonable _“I’ll be burning in hell before I let you have this!”_ , and from Goemon only came _“Jigen, let’s try to be civil about this.”_ , and so on and so forth. He really just wished they had all taken Jigen’s advice to shut the fuck up.

It was long before he finally slept. He hoped Jigen wouldn’t give up the diamond. He’d help his friend, but he knew he’d give in to Fujiko if she bat her eyelashes at him, and knew he was far too exhausted to help in any way. After all, Lupin the Third was still unfortunately human.


End file.
